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Topic: Rather than space-time, is the Universe made of light? (Read 4679 times)

We -- well I, rather, -- think of the Universe as being made up of space and time and matter and energy exist within that. I suppose it conveys the following sort of image: space-time is the tablecloth and matter & energy are the hot bowl of soup upon it.

Now, because of relativity (which one of the two theories of relativity I haven't the slightest) we tend to see space-time bending in order for light to continue ahead, full speed. Wouldn't a better way of looking at it be: the Universe is made of light and matter & energy experience light via space-time?

I am wondering if perhaps we are wrong to divide the universe the way we do.

We seem to treat mass, energy, time, distance, solid rock bodies, stars, gaseous bodies, black holes and dark matter as all being different from each other. We even seem to split the before the big bang the immediately after, the now and the future universe.

Should we not take the name 'universe' quite literally? There is one!!! The universe is made up of just one component in various degrees of density. So at it's most dense (assuming that to be a black hole) it is no different from at it's most sparse, dark matter.

There is just one all-encompassing dimension.

Why should there be any difference in the composition or physics of the universe from one point of density to another? Light does not need to bend, except to satisfy Man's inability to comprehend infinity. The universe is 13.7b LY?! No, it isn't. An object 13.7b LY has been found to be the furthest from the centre of the universe. Light from that object has travelled 13.7b LY in all directions, thus the universe is 27.4b LY at least.

Do I know what the hell I'm babbling on about? Precious little chance of that. [:I] [:o)]

Many points there. I believe that it is the observable universe that is 13.7b LY away. Even if an alien race existed 10b LY away from us their observable universe would still be 13.7b LY away. This of course refers to looking in one direction, the radius, as you mentioned. And so, one can imagine "little" observation bubbles scattered throughout the Universe. I think the prevailing hypothesis is that space wraps back around on itself. There is no evidence, however, of that happening within our observation bubble.

On your former point, while I believe on a spiritual level that monism (all is one) is true, it's not very useful for scientific understanding. The history of science has been to observe our surroundings then divide and label our findings. This is to better understand what we experience in our daily lives.

It's not always useful, for example the idea of race came from the earliest form of what is now called anthropology. Before that people basically had the idea of us and not us. "Anthropologists" divided to understand. Combined with Christian ideas the result was a hierarchy that went something like: beasts->savages->barbarians->civilization->angels. Anthropologists later categorized people based on their skull features and came up with four groups: negroids, mongoloids, australoids, and cacasoids. Automatically laymen began associating these "races" with evolutionary hierarchy.

The point is, while it's not always immediately helpful, the purpose of science is to dissect in order to understand. It seems to be working.

In order to get a more on topic reply let me try to re-frame the question. Could it be that the Universe's only dimension is light and space-time-matter-energy exist and interact within that dimension?

The idea is too vague to really discuss it as a scientific theory. Science works by testing predictions, and if an idea doesn't make a prediction, it isn't really testable science. At the very least, a theory should make predictions that agree with existing theories and measurements, although ideally it should offer new predictions that can distinguish it from previous theories.

For example, if Einstein had come along and said, "Three dimensional space is wrong. Let's think of time as a fourth dimension," his ideas would have been fairly useless to scientists. What he (and others involved in relativity) did was to describe these four dimensions mathematically and relate them to physical events so that the idea could be tested and also checked against existing measurements and theories.

If you can develop the idea a bit further, they might be easier to discuss as science. For example, the concept of dimension has a very precise meaning in relativity, and its not clear how you would replace that idea with the idea of "light" in a mathematical way.

Just thought I'd better point out that due to the expansion of the universe, the observable universe is reckoned to be about 93 billion light years in diameter, not just ~28 billion light years across.

But anyway, I think it could be true to say that the universe is (mostly) made of light.

Space-time is not, or at least appears not to be 'made' of anything; it is simply 'room' within which things may exist. As such, space-time has no intrinsic size; it is neither finite nor infinite in size, but instead is better described as unbounded and having no limits.

The universe then, comprising everything that exists, does so within space-time, and because space-time appears to be unbounded, the universe has the potential to expand without bounds.

You can think of space-time as 'where' and the universe as 'what', so while you could go for a three mile walk to a shop, you couldn't go into that shop and buy a distance of three miles, and the hour the walk took you, get them wrapped and take them home with you. Conversely, after finding that you couldn't buy your three mile walk to the shop and the hour it took, you do find that you could buy a kilogramme bag of sugar. However, whilst walking back home with your bag of sugar you realise that the bag of sugar, because it can be in different places (first of all it was in the shop but now it's somewhere else - note that both time and place have changed), is not a place or time in its own right. You rightfully conclude then, that you can travel a distance but not a bag of sugar, and it'll take you a period of time to do so, and once again, not a bag of sugar. You'll also realise that, once you get home with your sugar, you can't put your three mile walk back from the shop, or the hour it took, into your cup of coffee, but a spoon or two of the sugar will work fine.

The upshot of all this is that the universe is a 'what' existing in space-time, which is a 'where', and that as the CMBR is present everywhere within the universe, whilst matter is present in only relatively tiny groups, the universe does largely consist of light, at least by volume.

6 Energy - Nitrogen - a composite of the energy from elements one through five

7 Sky - Calcium Sulfate

8 Lightening - Calcium Carbonate

Powers

9 Luck - Iron Sulfide - Fools Gold. Called "blessings" in the bible and "chance" in the I Ching

10 Stealth - Graphite. the forces of ying and yang. both together and separately

Ultimate material

11 Grout - Limestone - Finality

Meaning

12 Unity - Light

Quantifier - Low pitch

13 Gravity - Carbonic Acid

Qualifier - High pitch

14 Speciality (specialization) - acetic acid

these are two sevens which are two hexagrams one inside the other which is two triforces super-imposed ontop of eachother.

the first seven elements are the inner star and the last six are the outer star. speciality is the center tear of the outer star whichis divided by the inner star into six categories. six colours leaving out purple which represents pain: signifiying that having in ones self (spirit) all 14 elements (or gradients) eliminated pain caused by ones self. as if to say. the elements do not specialize in pain.

[not that they cannot represent pain. pain is one of the two possible negative aspects of the energy element. the other is jealousy. the only two things that can destroy.]

but pure light is different from all these modes it can exist in to facilitate the physical world. the secret is " + "

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